Feminist Choice

[Blistory]

Not a TAAT but prompted by one.

I know that most posters on here despair when people use the I exercised a choice and the fact that I did so itself is feminist, therefore what I did was a feminist act line of reasoning but can making a choice to do something that either is against women or comes from a tradition of oppressing women ever be a feminist choice ?

So on the marriage thread for example, can choosing to use your husband's surname ever be hailed as a feminist act ? So if you know that the tradition behind it is not at all supportive of women, can it really be reclaimed by women as a positive or does the history of how it arose completely wipe it out ?

Trivial example I know but there seem to be so many everyday things that stem from horrible woman oppressing traditions or that have evolved recently to objectify women that I can't see how any woman who has seriously thought about these things can ever call their choice a feminist one. It's a choice, yes, great, but even feminists do anti feminist things.

What am I missing or is this feminism lite that I just don't get ?

When Billie Piper stars in a dramatised version of "Paid For", we might be getting somewhere, Beach.

Yes, TheDoctrine. I shan't hold my breath.

Is this a genuine misunderstanding or a failure to listen?

I wonder.

I think my analysis is pretty simple. A woman who glamorises prostitution and who writes misogynistic books and blogs is exercising agency unless someone is forcing or coercing her to do these things. AFAIA, nobody is doing this to Ms Magnanti - therefore it appears to me that she is exercising agency.

If society was not misogynistic, her views would be considered marginal, misogynistic and potentially harmful to women and they would not be publicized and made into hideous television programmes and books.

As society is misogynistic, her views are embraced, publicized , held up as highly valid, given air time, discussed in serious newspapers, used to justify the instituion of prostitution, used to get women with less patriarchial pleasing opinions to STFU, etc and therefore are able to cause damage to women.

to some in rad fem where men must always be seen to hold as much power as possible because that provides a good reason to forgive women for having the limited personal agency rad fem projects on them

Which brings me back to this. Which I was trying to ignore.

DadWasHere, perhaps you are not very informed on radical feminism, hence your rather odd statement here.

My experience of the radical feminist movement is that careful attention is paid to women's agency and that it is the very last thing we would want to steal from ourselves. Have you ever read much Dworkin or watched any of her speeches on youtube? Same goes for MacKinnon or Daly or any of the many other radical feminists whose work has been fundamental to forming the radical movement.

You have no idea what it is to be a woman in a man's world. And it reads to me that it is you who is projecting. Projecting your world view onto radical feminism.

Just as you have done WRT Ms Magnanti on this thread.

Yeah, I think rad fems can easily critique the happy hooker myth; agency is not in question and in any case is only introduced by the liberal agenda (should I mention the twat thing here again?). The critique is aimed at the choices available to women as a class in relation to men as a class, not the individuals choices made by one woman. In my view, BM' s choices are simply a symptom of a grievously misogynistic culture in the case that (a) she made them;(b) they were available to her; and (c) they are fetishised by the media. You could only make a choice like that in a patriarchal and capitalist culture and they could similarly only be realised in one. That they media choose to focus on this very marginal account of prostitution rather than the more common and desperate narratives of abuse, poverty and trafficking is one glorious example of the patriarchy in operation.

I see what you're saying Beach et al. I get the analysis vs judgement part and I agree with your analysis. I think I am comfortable going a bit further into either judgement or critique. Dadwashere I don't agree with your view either re agency in feminism or radfem and TBH I'm not interested in joining up with men to tear down a woman.

Although I agree that BM is given her voice and platform by patriarchal media which are entranced by the happy hooker myth, I believe that women who are not desperate and who do have choices have a responsibility either to advance the class of women or at least not to hold them back. I chose BM purposely rather someone who I don't agree with but who seems to at least be making an effort for women (like Laurie Penny) because I don't want to spend time and effort attacking other women who are feminists, even of a different hue. I also hate the "call out" culture which is so prevalent in social media. However BM's statement that she can live with the fact that young girls might go into prostitution because of her writing as a price she is willing to pay for making a living as a writer / commenter on prostitution puts her beyond the pale for me. I do judge her for this.

Going back to the Choice Feminism paper, I think there is a problem with stepping back and saying "these are my values but I won't hold anyone else to them". There is a line that needs to be drawn between that and tearing down everyone who is not exactly on point with every detail of your beliefs but I think we need to be careful of personalising the political.

Thanks for the last night TheDoctrine! Better have at this time of day though...

I too see what you are saying FloraFox. I basically agree with you - and it is up to each of us to find our position on this sort of thing. I think I find it very hard to be critical of women who have been in prostitution. Although I totally agree with you about the young girls going into prostituion thing - that was, as you say, beyond the pale, and I did judge her when I read that statement. I was pretty shocked by that.